Many errors in voter list forces UEC to extend declaration period

August 12, 2020

HURFOM: On August 6, 2020, the Union Election Commission (UEC) announced the declaration period (verification of names) of the voter list will be extended for another 7 days – from August 8 to 14.

The reason for the extension, given by the sub-election commissions, is because there are too many errors in the initial voter list.

“I’ve never heard that the declaration period of the voter list had to be extended. The previous UEC just made a first and second time declaration (verification) of the voter list (They never extended the time). The extension is due to too many errors,” said Daw Aye Aye Thi, the Secretary of the Sit Kel Gone Ward Sub-election Commission of Mawlamyine Township.

Sit Kel Gone has 4,500 eligible voters and as of August 7, only 254 of residents came to check the voter list. 126 voters requested a correction, meaning there was an error rate of nearly 50 percent.

“Names and national registration numbers could be wrong during the data collection. When hand writing was digitised, there might be some errors also. But just having errors can’t violate voting rights. You can complain up to and on the day before the election. They can correct your voter list with Form #12 on election day,” explained U Hein Linn Htet, the Secretary of the Mon State Sub-election Commission.

In some cases, entire family members were excluded from the voter list. The most frequent type of error is voter’s name exclusion.

“It’s acceptable if one or two household [members] were left out, but excluding the whole family is unacceptable,” said U Saw Phay, the Chair of Myine Thar Yar Sub-election Commission of Mawlamyine Township.

Even though the period of voter list verification has been extended, voters have not shown a strong interest to check their lists, mostly due to livelihood struggles linked to COVID-19.

According to the Mon State Sub-election Commission, as of August 6, there were 174,000 people who came to check the list, and 16,000 people requested corrections, amendments and/or submitted complaints.

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under News